Joseph Crocker Computers, Sherborne (2026)

12/04/2026

This weekend I've stepped away from my workbench, and instead been camped out in the tech box at the Sherborne Literary Society's () amazing Travel Writing Festival.

They've kept me busy running lights, sound, visuals, and recording. All at once, which is a job best suited to an octopus- but unfortunately we couldn't get one up the stairs, so my two hands had to do!

The Travel Writing Festival has taken lots of planning, and it's been a pleasure to work the event; as it was for the years before it, which I definitely didn't forget to post about!

Now, I shouldn't play favourites, but this year Dan Richards () gave a brilliant, dynamic, and engaging talk about his book, 'Overnight', which has effortlessly put his book on my wishlist. He also used a couple of sound effects during his talk which was an excellent display of storycraft. Figuring out how we could set up a soundboard for him to use on stage proved to be an interesting challenge too!

Hopefully I'll see everyone next year, and get to listen in to some of their fantastic talks again, in-between pressing buttons and flicking switches to keep everything sounding and looking good, of course.

20/02/2026

The first post of 2026! And I'm only, *checks calendar*, a month and a half late in making it!

Today I've had a nice straightforward repair on the workbench. Originally, this laptop wouldn't turn on and had no charging light when plugged in. Which is strangely a good thing - as bigger problems like this are often easier to find.

After a bit of poking and prodding with a multimeter, it became clear that the main power line in the laptop was shorted to ground, meaning a component somewhere had failed. So I took a few more safety measurements, and then I injected power onto the main power line- which is basically the same as forcing electricity into the laptop.

Injecting power is useful in this situation, as all the power we're forcing into the laptop will take the shortest path possible to get back out of the laptop, and because somewhere on our main power line there's a failed component which is letting power go to ground and leave the laptop easier than it should, we can follow the path the power takes, and it will lead us to the faulty component.

And, because there's so much power flowing through our faulty component it will get quite hot! So practically speaking, I'll inject power into the laptop, and then start feeling around on the board for any hot spots; a thermal camera can be a big help here too, and allows you to really follow the flow or the power, but unfortunately, my thermal camera is still in my Amazon basket!

Eventually, I found the faulty component, a broken ceramic capacitor, which you can see in the last picture. Placed next to a USB stick for scale.

It's quite common for these capacitor to fail, so a little guy like this is exactly what I was hoping the problem would be. After fitting a new capacitor, the laptop is back up and running again like nothing ever happened!

10/09/2025

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to be supplying and running sound equipment for the amazing ! We were only running a couple of microphones and a pair of speaks, so nothing too crazy from a technical point of view, but the variety of performances kept it more than interesting; poetry, a drag queen, local musicians AND a choir - what a mix!

30/05/2025

This week we've had so many Apples in the workshop that it's started to feel more like an orchard - though I'm not complaining!

Of the three, the first one with it's bottom cover missing (how scandalous!) is in for a screen replacement, the second who's all back together needed a new battery and after we discovered some liquid damage & corrosion it got a good clean too, and the third... Well I'm not too sure what's wrong with the third yet. It's a pet project that I was kindly given by a customer, and I haven't had a chance to properly get it apart yet - but it's such a beautiful device I know that no matter what's wrong with it I'll have to get it working one way or another.

It's amazing to see how much computers have advanced in only 35 odd years - processing power being the obvious difference, but their overall feel, aesthetic and purpose too.

Wikipedia quotes a review of the Macintosh classic mentioning how "The classic's value is more impressive than it's performance, but it's performance will get you working on that novel, database, or spreadsheet" clearly showing an expectation of what they thought people were going to use it for. While people still are using computers for writing and working years later, their usefulness has far surpassed that limited scope. I wonder if the designers of the Macintosh classic ever foresaw how prolific computers would become, even for things like shopping online, video calling, and watching Netflix. Who knows - though if anyone ever bumps into them, do ask them on my behalf!

More grandiose theoretical questions aside, electronics are electronics and while an older computer like this is very different from a modern laptop, and will no doubt have a few surprises in stock for me, ultimately they all rely on the same principles. There are places there should be electricity, and places there shouldn't be electricity. To fix a machine like this, all you need to do is make sure all the electricity is where it should be, and isn't where it shouldn't be; which sounds wonderfully simple untill you see how complex their components get... Which is exactly why this one is getting saved for a rainy day!

16/05/2025

No rambling on about technology today, as instead we're celebrating 1000 jobs well done! 🎉🥳
.....in the new job notes system, at least. BUT, pedantics aside, it is quite the fun milestone and it's certainly been a journey to get here; fixing all manner of electrical devices, building computers, designing websites, helping people use their devices, running tech for live events and hearing lots of interesting stories from my customers - it's been a busy few years!

That last point is especially interesting to me personally, as the stories people tell never cease to amaze me. It's so easy for an off hand comment about Windows to spark memories of how someone ran into Bill Gates (the man behind Microsoft, which makes Windows) in Mexico once, or suggesting radio interference could be causing problems reminds someone of their time as a radio operator in the navy. People's first experiences with computers too - normally at work, and some recall punch cards, or tapes and floppy disks, or even how to operate immensely complex electromechanical systems that would now be out-computed by the cheapest of smartphones. It's intriguing stuff!

But, getting back on track, whether it's 100, 1000, or 10000 jobs, business will continue on and I'm looking forward to what the next 1000 jobs will bring, and the stories I might hear on them. So, if you have any technical problems - big or small - get in touch and I'd be happy to help!

07/02/2025

Today I'm sharing more of a dissection, or even autopsy rather than an actually repair.

I've opened up not one, but TWO surface 8 pro keyboards to try and figure out why they've stopped working.

I haven't got a device to test them with, and my attempts at creating a USB adapter didn't go as planned as either I got unlucky with my wiring or these keyboards don't use the normal USB protocol - so without knowing what exactly is wrong I decided to take a shot at a physical inspection and see if that would reveal any issues!

Now, there's not really much to these keyboards and the little there is, is tightly sealed so there was no chance of a nondestructive disassembly. With that realisation I started cutting away at the fabric material and found my main suspects.

Those suspects being the cables that connect the keyboard and trackpad to the contacts which in turn connect everything to the laptop.

These cables are bent at very sharp angles, and while I imagine Microsoft have put some thought into it, I'd still expect the cables to fail sooner because of this. The same cable in both keyboards is broken in a near identical spot, which to me seems like a pretty clear cause of death.

Unfortunately, it is possible I damaged the cables while disassembling the keyboards so it's not a certainty that this is the issue, but it seems quite likely and I'm willing to accept it. But, I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts!

Or course, I did try to repair the cables as doing that is technically possible, but I found them to be too thin and in such an awkward position I couldn't solder to them - hopefully you'll cut me some slack as soldering 6 wires roughly 0.10mm in size back together really isn't as easy as it sounds!

Overall, it would be nice if these keyboards had some more easily accessible repair manuals that contained information on which pins do what so I could create an adapter to test them. It would also be good if they were built with repair in mind, as there must be a way of designing this cable to be replaceable and making non-destructive disassembly possible so the keyboard can be put back together again once fixed; if Microsoft really wanted to.

31/01/2025

And that's our latest PC build finished! This little box may not be the prettiest on the inside as it wasn't built to have all the newfangled modern cable management features we take for granted these days - BUT, I must say I am a fan of it's sparkling silver exterior.

The reason for reusing an older case is to reduce costs and and E-waste. As this beautiful case would end up in landfill otherwise and what a shame that would be!

During this build we also bumped into some cooling issues - the manufacturer supplied CPU cooler, despite being sold with the CPU, wasn't really enough to keep it cooled. Fortunately we saw this during our normal thermal performance tests and have replaced the cooler with something more suitable.

I'm typically all for using the manufacturer supplied coolers as they should be good enough to keep the CPU well within it's safe operating temperature, but clearly not always!

In short, don't throw things out just because they're old, reuse them where you can, and always test builds before they go out the door!

23/01/2025

We're showing off something new today - a networking installation!

For this job we've fitted two new Cat6a Ethernet cables that combined run for about 118 meters. Most of that is in underground conduit, but a decent bit had to be clipped down to build's walls too.

The goal was to connect a small office to the property's brand-new fibre internet. However, the new fibre cable came in at one end of the site and the office was at the other!

Initially, we planned for a wireless PTMP (Point To Many Point) system, so we could connect the office and then easily expand the system later on if needed.

However, we were then told that there is existing conduit that could be used for cables; huzzah! So instead of fitting a good, but ultimately slower and less reliable wireless system we've laid down some good old-fashioned copper cable. It takes longer and costs more to do (in this case at least) but the cables won't be affected by environmental conditions like bad weather, and they're in the range of 50 times faster (200Mbps Vs 10Gbps) which isn't bandwidth we need now but will help future proof the system.

In addition to the cable, we fitted boxes at each end to terminate it in, a networking switch with a nice 3D printed holder for its power supply so it can be neatly wall mounted, and a Wi-Fi access point for the office - as having a fast wired connection is great, but not much good for you mobile phone!

This job ended up taking a day and a half, during which quite a few lessons were learned! However now it's all fitted, working well, and I've just got to finish the paperwork.

18/10/2024

I've just finished replacing this little laptop's screen after it had an unfortunate accident - can you tell it's not original?

05/09/2024

What on earth happened to that laptop lid!?
..well that's a different story, but it is one of the many miscellaneous laptop and computer "bits" that I've collected and now found a new use for!

While replacing a laptop's palmrest after it got severely damaged (typical hinge issues due to lackluster design, I'll save that tirade for another post) I realised that the only available replacement part had a hole where a fingerprint sensor could be fitted. However, unfortunately, the laptop I was fixing didn't have a fingerprint sensor so unless I thought of something there'd be a very noticeable hole in the laptop that would allow direct access to the somewhat fragile battery - not good.

This is where our old, sacrificial, laptop lid comes in. It's just about the right shade of Lenovo grey to have a small piece of it cut off, sanded down, and superglued into the palmrest of our now fixed and de-holed laptop, and look good while doing it!

It's not always possible to find an exact replacement part, but with a little bit of ingenuity more often than not there'll be a way of finding a more sideways solution to the problem with what is available. And this sort of fix is why it's valuable to collect (and it is collecting, not hoarding, I swear) old or irreparable devices so parts from them can be salvaged to keep more fortunate devices going.

So if you have any old or broken devices collecting dust in a draw or attic, we'd be happy to recycle them and maybe one day parts from them could help get someone else's desktop or laptop running again!

23/06/2024

I've just had this Xbox series S on the bench as it needed a new HDMI port and few traces repairing, and oohhh boy it was a tricky one!

The old HDMI port had already snapped off so we started by repairing a few traces instead, which are the golden lines you can see on the picture. The two that got most of my attention are on the far right side.

The traces are quite small, for frame of reference you can see a convenient but accidental beard hair towards the top of the microscope's screen, which is only so much thinner than the traces!

With the traces fixed I moved onto clearing the holes where our new HDMI port's legs go and then started to attach the new port. Unfortunately, this is where the trouble started - unlike the Xbox one s, which is a very well behaved device, the Xbox SERIES s absolutely devours heat which makes it very hard to get up to temperature so new solder can be properly added onto the port.

Because of this the APU's heatsink had to be removed so there was less thermal mass to warm up, and I had to dual wield the hot air station with the soldering iron at the same time, with both of them running at near maximum.

This is definitely a sign I need to invest is some higher end tools, but, it also proves that using the right technique you can get by with less, which is neat. The moral of the story being that you can make do with any tool if you have the skill and practice, but with that said there's a £200 pound hot air station in my Amazon basket calling my name, and I doubt I'll be taking on another Xbox series S without it!

07/04/2024

Today is the final day of the Sherborne Travel Writing Festival, and I'm up in the projection box making sure the next slide appears on cue and as expected!

Just like last year (and if we're lucky, will be next year) it's been a great experience and hearing all the talks is thoroughly interesting and thought provoking. Tickets for the last few talks this year have sold out, but if you keep an eye on Sherborne Literary Society and you won't miss out on their next event!

Joseph Crocker Computers

12/04/2026

20/02/2026

10/09/2025

30/05/2025

16/05/2025

07/02/2025

31/01/2025

23/01/2025

18/10/2024

05/09/2024

23/06/2024

07/04/2024

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